“She never got feverish,” said Calix. “They’ve been watching her all night, waiting for your extraction this morning, but she never got sick.”
Samm broke into a run, hurtling down the hall so fast he left Calix hobbling anxiously in his wake. He reached the maternity ward in less than a minute and pushed his way through the babbling crowd of nurses and onlookers surrounding the nurse’s station. Heron was already there, standing apart in a corner.
“Where is she?” asked Samm.
“Right in there,” said Laura, pointing to a mother staring in awe at her sleeping baby in a private room off the hallway. “Strong as an ox.”
Samm stared as well, not comprehending what was happening. Why hadn’t the baby gotten sick? Was she born immune? Surely RM was still in the air—all these people were carriers. So why wasn’t she sick?
A doctor rushed up to them, holding a small glass data screen in Laura’s face. “The blood test just finished: She already has the pheromone in her system.”
“Who gave it to her?” asked Laura.
“Nobody,” said the doctor.
Samm looked at the data screen, reading the results as best he could. “One of the other Partials, maybe?”
“She’s been under constant observation,” said the doctor. “We don’t leave their side for a second in the days after birth, and we record everything that happens. Nobody’s given her anything—just general antibiotics and some milk from her mother.”
“It’s airborne,” said Heron.
Calix finally arrived, gritting her teeth as she hopped toward them. “What’s airborne?”
Samm looked at Heron, slowly realizing what she meant. “Nine Partials have been living in the hospital for a month,” he said. “Ten, since I’m here more often than not. We’ve been injecting the pheromone directly to the bloodstream because that’s the way Vale did it, but it’s a pheromone—it’s designed to be transmitted through the air. Now that you’re living with us twenty-four hours a day, you’re breathing it in, and it’s just . . . everywhere.”
Calix looked at the data screen, then the baby, then back at Samm. “How many of us are going?”
“Going where?”
“To East Meadow,” said Calix. “This is the answer; we have to tell them.”
“We need Samm if we’re going to keep this whole pheromone incubator working,” said Laura.
“Gorman will stay,” said Calix, “and others. Most of them still can’t make the journey.”
“None of you can,” said Heron. “The Badlands will kill you.”
“It’s worth the risk,” said Calix.
Samm shook his head. “It’s too dangerous—”
“You’ll get to see Kira again,” said Calix.
Samm fell silent.
Calix’s eyes were hard. “If this system can work, if Partials and humans can live together, side by side, we can save the other humans, and who knows—maybe the Partials too. Gorman and his team are still alive, even if we don’t know why.” She looked down, just for a moment. “And we can save Kira, too. This is what she came here for.”
Samm breathed deep, trying to think of something to say. He looked at Laura. “She’s right.”
“I know she is,” said Laura. “If there really are more humans out there, we have to do what we can for them.”
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to come back,” said Samm.
“
We
,” said Calix fiercely. “I’m going with you.”
“Not with that leg,” said Samm.
“You’ll have to shoot me again to stop me.”
Heron fingered the butt of her semiautomatic. “Same leg, or the other one this time?”
“I’m the best wilderness explorer in the Preserve,” said Calix hotly, “even with a bad leg. Frankly, I don’t think you can make it without me.”
Samm thought about the Badlands: the swirling pools of poison water, the endless miles of bone-white trees. He and Heron were more resilient than any human, but neither of them were scouts; someone with targeted survival training would be useful. He rubbed his acid scars and frowned. “Shooting you might be kinder.” Calix started to protest, but Samm stopped her with a gesture. “We leave tomorrow morning. If you’re prepared to die for this, be ready to go at dawn.”
“
G
eneral.”
Shon looked up from his maps, trying to plan the next wave of their hunt for the human terrorists. The resistance had ramped up their attacks over the last few weeks, striking harder and in more places than ever before, only to fade away like ghosts into the forests and ruins. They were getting bolder, too: His camp had spent the night and morning pinned down by sniper fire. He looked at the messenger with weary eyes. “What news?”
“We found the sniper’s nest, but no one was there—just a rifle rigged up to an alarm clock.”
Shon raised his eyebrow. “You’re kidding.”
The messenger’s link was completely sincere, blended with disbelief. “I saw it myself, sir. The trigger had been removed and connected to the gears of an alarm clock—one of the old wind-up ones, sir, completely handmade. We think it was set to fire into the camp at regular intervals, and the tripod was loosened just enough that the recoil adjusted the aim with each shot, so it wasn’t hitting the same spot over and over. The scouts think no one’s been up there since the first shot last night.”
Shon clenched his fist, linking his rage so fiercely that the messenger staggered back.
“That explains why no one was actually hit, sir,” said the messenger. “We thought it was just because humans are bad shots, but . . . now we know, I guess. It wasn’t even aiming, just firing every half hour or so. Maybe they just set it up and hoped they got lucky.”
“All they were hoping to do was slow us down,” said Shon, “which they’ve done brilliantly. Just when I thought we’d figured out these White Rhinos’ tactics, they switch them up completely.”
“That’s the other thing, sir,” said the messenger. “We don’t think this was the Rhinos—or if it was, it was some kind of splinter group. There was a note.” He stepped forward and handed it to the general.
Shon frowned, taking the wrinkled piece of paper. “They’ve never left a note before.”
“Exactly, sir. Everything about this strike is different from what we’ve seen before.”
Shon read the note: “‘Sorry we couldn’t wait around. We have some more surprises to set up. Love and kisses, Owen Tovar.’ What on earth?”
“We don’t know who Owen Tovar is yet,” said the messenger, “but we’re working on it.”
“He was one of the senators,” said Shon. “We thought they’d all gone into hiding. But why . . .” He stared at the note, turning it over in the halfhearted hope of finding another clue on the back. There was nothing. “Why identify himself? Is it just a taunt, or is there a deeper message to it?”
“Maybe he’s trying to rile us up?” asked the messenger. “After all those sniper shots into the camp, the soldiers are ready to burn the forest down to find them.”
Shon sighed and rubbed his eyes, feeling the strain of the long day more keenly than ever. “What’s your name, soldier?”
The messenger straightened to attention. “Thom, sir.”
“Thom, I want you to follow the scouts trying to track whoever set up that rifle. Report to me immediately when you find who’s responsible. You have a radio?”
“I can get one from supply, sir. Our battery packs are dwindling, though.”
Shon nodded. “We have prisoners hand-cranking the generators twenty-four hours a day, charging new ones.”
And with any luck, we’ll get new orders from Morgan any day now, calling us home. Until then
. . .
“May I ask a question, sir?”
Shone considered him a moment, then nodded. “Yes.”
“Why not flush them out with more hostages, sir? There are more guerrillas in these woods almost every day, but we still have East Meadow locked down. If we threaten to kill a few of them, it might get these rebels to stop—”
“We’re not murderers, soldier.” Shon’s words were accompanied by a harsh sting across the link, and he noted with satisfaction that Thom flinched when he sensed it. “The rebels are enemy combatants, and fighting enemy combatants is literally in your DNA. We were built to win wars while protecting innocent lives, and if you can’t do the one thing you were designed to do, maybe you’re not fit for this army.” It was a ferocious counterattack, the cruelest insult a Partial could give to another, but Shon had seen this same attitude growing in the ranks and he was determined to stamp it out. Thom recoiled, his link data a mixture of shock and shame, but barely a moment later his data was overpowered with rage, and he shot back a comment of his own.
“Dr. Morgan had us killing civilians, sir, and she had more right to her authority than some jumped-up infantryman—”
“Soldier!” He sent his anger thundering across the link, so powerful that his guards came in from the room beyond, hands on their guns and ready for trouble. “Have this man court-martialed,” said Shon, “and held in custody for the duration of the occupation.”
The guards linked their shock at the order but obeyed without question, taking Thom’s weapons and leading him away.
Off to one of the cages,
Shon thought. Out here in the wilderness, the modified trucks were the only form of prison they had.
We’ve never used them to lock up one of our own before. The way things are going, that might become a lot more common.
Shon looked at the note again. Why the name? Why the flippant attitude? And what, in the end, was their plan? The day full of sniper shots had kept the entire camp on eggshells: hiding from the shots, searching for the shooter, returning fire when they could—fruitlessly, he realized now. But what purpose did that serve? The recent string of guerrilla attacks had been almost deliberately random, apparently not even decoys designed to lead them in a certain direction.
But of course not,
Shon realized.
If we could tell that they were trying to lead us in one direction, we’d go directly in the other, and they know that. They’re not trying to lead us anywhere, just keep us busy. So it is a decoy tactic, but for what?
Keep us busy long enough,
he thought with a sigh,
and sooner or later the whole army’s going to fall apart. We have insurgency in the ranks, the bioweapon’s still destroying our patrols, and we haven’t heard from Morgan in weeks. I don’t even know if my messages to her are getting through. All we have are the same old orders, the last orders she ever gave us: contain the population, and hold the island. No explanation of what we’re holding it for, just
. . .
hold it. It doesn’t make sense.
According to his scouts, the mysterious giant creature had finally left the island—he’d moved north, talking to everyone he could, and when he’d reached the North Shore he’d just . . . walked into the sound, still heading north.
That’s one less thing to worry about,
he thought.
And maybe if Morgan sees it for herself, she’ll realize how disordered things have become over here. Maybe she’ll finally take command again, tell me
something
about what I’m supposed to be doing here. Anything.
But I’m not Thom,
he thought.
I don’t question my orders. She told us to hold this island, so we’re going to hold it.
Or die trying.
K
ira woke to the sound of dripping water. She tried to move, only to feel handcuffs on her hands and feet. The small chains rattled as she scraped her limbs across the floor, struggling to sit upright. Her face and body were wet, pressed onto something soft and damp, like a layer of slimy growth. The scent of mold filled her nose. She opened her eyes, but it was too dark to see.
She coughed, hacking up water, and tried to right herself. Her hands were trapped behind her back, and when she rolled faceup to get a real breath, her fingers squished deep into the soft something covering the floor. She coughed again, staring around wide-eyed yet blind. Dark shapes emerged as her eyes began to adjust: a wall, a window, a dim blue star. She looked away from it, trying to penetrate the inky black corners of her prison.
Something moved, slow and heavy.
“Who’s there?” Kira’s voice was barely a whisper, the words rasping from her throat with another cough and a spurt of filthy water. She retched and backed away, only to realize that she didn’t know where the sound was coming from; she might be backing blindly toward it. “Who’s there?”
Another movement, closer now. A dark black shadow moving in the darkness.
Kira tucked her legs up close to her chest and scooted her bound hands down past her hips and around to the front of her body. Her feet were cuffed too tightly to properly stand, so she crawled on her hands and knees to the wall with the window. Something was coming after her, moving much more quickly than she could. She stood up and found the window glassless and open. She braced herself against the sill, ready to vault out, but a pair of thick hands grabbed her from behind, one on her stomach and one on her mouth, clamping down over her scream, dragging her back to the floor. She kicked and thrashed, and felt hot breath on her ear.
“Stay down and be quiet. They’ll hear you.”
Kira kept kicking, fighting as hard as she could to get away. The man holding her was strong, and his arms were like iron bands.
“I’m on your side,” the man hissed. “Just promise me you’re not going to scream.”
Kira couldn’t escape, so she tried to hold still despite her pounding heart and the adrenaline surging through her like fire. She clenched her hands into tight fists, forcing herself to concentrate. Her mouth was covered, but she took a deep breath through her nose.
FEAR
The room was saturated with it. The man was a Partial, and he was just as scared as she was. She tried to slow her breathing, and finally nodded her assent.
The man let her go. She rolled away instantly, but only a few feet, and stayed out of view from the window. With her eyes better adjusted to the dark she could see him now, a standard Partial infantry model. His uniform hung in tatters, and his face, while difficult to see clearly, was covered in grime.